Diamond dust

“ For industry and everyday life the infinitesimal quantities of diamond dust obtained by the French chemist may have no immediate value, and some time will probably be required before a modest-sized jewel is made in a laboratory. But the discovery has a great scientific interest, inasmuch as it is the outcome of a whole series of researches which have recently been made with the view of artificially reproducing all sorts of minerals and rocks, and which are admirably chosen for ultimately throwing new light upon the intimate structure of physical bodies. ”

“ In Chinese lore diamonds are rulers of gold and have their origin in gold. A similar belief prevailed in mediæval Europe, adamantine gold being credited with the same virtues as the diamond. Both gold and the diamond were sacred. The diamond is a mediæval symbol of Christ; in the Far East it is connected with Buddha. The association of the diamond with snakes gave origin to the belief that it was poisonous, the saliva of the snakes clinging to it. Diamond dust is regarded in India as a deadly poison. Like the sacred pearl, the diamond has been credited with nocturnal luminosity. ”

“ According to Garcias ab Orta (1563) , the diamond was not used for medicinal purposes in the India of his time, except when injected into the bladder to break up vesical calculi. He notes, however, the prevalent belief that diamonds, or diamond dust, when taken internally, worked as a poison. As a proof of the falsity of this belief, Garcias adduces the fact that the slaves who worked in the diamond mines often swallowed diamonds to conceal them, and never experienced any ill effects, the stones being recovered in a natural way. ”

“ There are borrowings in plenty, especially in "Where the Forest Murmurs," and even when the collecting seems his own, as it does in "Earth, Fire, and Water," "Children of Water," and "Cuilidh Mhoire," it is diamond dust, not diamonds, to which he gives so beautiful setting. ”

“ The great cloud-barred disk of the sun stood just above a limitless expanse of tossing white-caps—so to speak—a billowy chaos of massy mountain domes and peaks draped in imperishable snow, and flooded with an opaline glory of changing and dissolving splendors, while through rifts in a black cloud-bank above the sun, radiating lances of diamond dust shot to the zenith. The cloven valleys of the lower world swam in a tinted mist which veiled the ruggedness of their crags and ribs and ragged forests, and turned all the forbidding region into a soft and rich and sensuous paradise. ”

“ As it is moved forth and back, saw-like, across the surface, the dust supplies the place of teeth, and the metallic thread slowly buries itself in that hardest of stones.
The truth of the adage, “Diamond cuts diamond,” was made clear to us by the spectacle of six men illustrating it. Each man held in each hand a short stick, having at the end a socket filled with lead or some easily melted alloy. The diamond to be cut is partly sunk below the surface of this fusible metal while it is still in a molten condition, and just before it cools ”

“ The hardness of the carbon is equal to that of the transparent diamond, and probably some of the purest [Pg 46] and most compact specimens are harder even than the limpid variety; for the black gems are generally harder than the light-colored, and we have for instances the deep-blue sapphire, the black tourmaline, etc.
At first this newly discovered mineral was pulverized, and its powdered dust used to polish diamonds and other gems, and was then sold for a few francs the karat. Lately, however, science has applied its use to new inventions ”

“ One watches the men by the half-hour, and sees them make but little progress as they press one diamond against the other with all the power in their arms, and rub the two slowly together with a faint, crunching noise. If the sunlight falls upon the scene, one may notice certain glistening motes dropping into a little pan beneath their hands. This is the dust of diamonds, which is most carefully saved up to be used in the polishing, the final stage ”

“ No longer was there scum or film upon the surface; only ever and anon a light, rosy vapor floating up, and quick lost in the haggard, heavy, sulphurous air, hot with the conflagration rushing toward us from behind. And these coruscations formed, on the surface of the molten ruby, literally the shape of a rose, its leaves made distinct in their outlines by sparks of emerald and diamond and sapphire.
Even while gazing on this animated liquid luster, a buoyant delight seemed infused into my senses; all terrors conceived before were annulled ”

“ The fire no doubt may smoulder in the dull and languid embers; it is when the external breeze sweeps over them, that they begin to sparkle and glow, and vindicate the vital element they contain. The diamond in the mine has the same internal properties in the darkness as in the light; it is not till the sun shines upon it, that it flashes on the eye its splendor. Look at a flower of any particular species ”

“ Its color is that of ice, and as the dewdrop or the drop of water from a mountain stream sparkles in the light of the sun, as the icicle sparkles in winter, and the stars on a cold winter night, so the diamond sparkles, and it combines and contrasts with all known gems. Like light, it illumines them just as the sun does the plants of the earth. The diamond, the gem of light, like light itself when broken into a spectrum, gives us all known colors, and by combining all these colors it gives us white. ”

“ The old fancy that the diamond grew dark in the presence of poison is explained by the Italian physician Gonelli as caused by minute and tenuous particles which emanated from the poison, impinged upon the surface of the diamond, and, unable to penetrate its dense mass, accumulated on the surface, thus producing a superficial discoloration. The diamond, being a cold substance, may have condensed moisture from the body, and the one suffering from the poison may have emitted exudations. ”

“ The yellow tinge usually also disappears in artificial light. Of large Diamonds possessing a yellow color the Florentine and the Tiffany are the best known. The color of colored Diamonds is generally permanent, but that of some is said to fade on exposure to light. It can also be destroyed or changed by heat.
The luster of the Diamond is a peculiar one, and such as is possessed by few other minerals. In reference to its occurrence in the Diamond it is known as the adamantine luster. It combines the peculiarity of an oily luster with that of glass and that of a metal. ”

“ Separation occurs because the various colors, or wavelengths composing white light passing through the gem, are each bent or refracted a different amount. Red is bent least, followed in order by orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, which is bent most. This characteristic of being able to produce flashes of color, as seen prominently in diamond, is known as dispersion or fire. Quartz and glass have low dispersion, and hence they make poor diamond substitutes. Some of the newer synthetic gemstones, such as titania, have extremely high dispersion, with resulting fire. ”

“ Jewels, in themselves, are valueless, unless they are brought in contact with light. If they are put in certain positions they will reflect the beauty of the sun. There is no beauty in them otherwise. The diamond that is back in its dark gallery or down in the deep mine, displays no beauty whatever. What is it but a piece of charcoal, a bit of common carbon, unless it becomes a medium for reflecting light? ”

“ In prosecuting our search we should very soon discover that, in common with other gem minerals, the diamond has been a great wanderer, for it is usually found far from its original home. The disintegrating forces of the atmosphere, by acting upon the rocky material in which the stones were imbedded, have loosed them from their natural setting, to be caught up by the streams, sorted from their disintegrated matrix, and transported far from the parent rock, to be at last set down upon some gravelly bed over which the force of the current is weakened. ”

“ In the impure forms of Diamond the greasy or oily luster becomes more pronounced. Once the eye becomes accustomed to the peculiar luster of Diamond the stone may easily be distinguished by it from glass or minerals with a vitreous luster, such as quartz. Certain other minerals, however, such as cerussite, zircon, and to some extent sphene, exhibit the adamantine luster. In the glass known as strass, used to make imitation Diamonds, the adamantine luster is well imitated. ”

“ There only remains to be mentioned the diamond, which is of a nature quite different from that of the other precious stones, the principal ingredient in which is siliceous earth, which renders them not liable to be much affected by heat. On the contrary, the diamond is a combustible substance; for in a degree of heat somewhat greater than that which will melt silver, it burns with a slight flame, diminishes common air, and leaves a soot behind. Also, if diamond powder be triturated with vitriolic [Pg 127] acid, it turns it black, which is another proof of its containing phlogiston. ”

“ Professor Faraday has said that the ruby-tinted glass called “Bohemian” derives its colour from gold in a pure form, finely attenuated, and not from any chemical combination of that substance.
A white diamond has far more lustre than one which is yellow or violet-tinted. But in all the sapphires, the deeper the hue, the more brilliant and valuable the stone. Hence the technical term for the colour of a diamond is its water. In all these gems the hues (whatever their origin) are homogeneously united with the crystal; and the modus operandi of Nature is a profound secret. ”

“ The meteoric occurrence has even suggested the fanciful notion that all diamonds were originally derived from meteorites. The meteoric iron of Arizona, some of which contains diamond, is actually found in and about a huge crater which is supposed by some to have been formed by an immense meteorite penetrating the earth’s crust.
It is, at any rate, established that carbon can crystallize as diamond from solution in iron, and other metals; and it seems that high temperature and pressure and the absence of oxidizing agents are necessary conditions. ”

“ All is so silent, still, and weird in this white world, that one marvels when the spirit of winter will appear, or what shrill voices in the air will make his unimaginable magic audible. Nothing happens, however, to disturb the charm, save when a sunbeam cuts the chain of diamonds on an alder bough, and down they drift in a thin cloud of dust. ”

“ It is singular that in the early days of the dry diggings the diggers used in joke to express the very same opinions as I have quoted above, for they often unearthed diamonds coated with a thin, dark mineral crust, which disguised merely the shape of the diamond, not the color and lustre. ”

“ The shades stand attentive about the seeds of plants, as they surround the young of birds in the hatching egg, as they contain the foetus in its mother's womb. In the dark is the beginning of nearly all creative processes: even the diamond forms itself so, in the very bowels of the earth, remote from us—there, in a solid blackness, it takes to itself that faceted shape which later will reflect the light from its every point. ”

“ The revelations of chemistry have clearly demonstrated that the glittering stone, known as the diamond, is simply crystallized carbon, and one of the allotropic forms of that protean element which, by the aid of some mysterious agency, can deposit its substance in the shape of a sooty blackness, as in the coal, or in the transparent crystal of diamond, which may be regarded as the very emblem of light. Furthermore, the gem is not only the concentrated embodiment of human valuation, but it is also the standard of hardness among all mineral substances ”

“ Hugh Miller—Yes, in size, purity and coloring, our planet possesses diamonds equal to the finest of these. Why not? The constituents of the two planets being exactly alike and conditions sufficiently similar, naturally the same causes that produced the crystallization of these beautiful gems, would be operative in the formation of the diamond and other gems of our planet. Yes, the diamond is pure carbon, and to my mind it is the most attractive of gems. ”

“ Diaphaneity is the relative ability of stones to transmit light. Diaphaneity is described by terms such as transparent, translucent, and opaque. Transparency is highly desirable in stones such as diamond that are commonly facet-cut to reflect light. The gemstone should be water clear and free from inclusions and cracks so that it transmits light freely, but there are stones that do not exhibit this property that are prized as gemstones. For example, turquoise may appear to be completely opaque and not transmit any light, but it is sought for its fine blue color. ”

“ Diamonds are so brilliant, the radiance from the facets so bewildering to the eye, that the flaws cannot be seen by the human eye unless the imperfection is pronounced and at the top surface of the diamond. Each facet of a diamond (by reason of the method of cutting) is a window looking down a clearly defined walled chamber, like a hall-way to the culet. ”

“ The meteoric origin of this remarkable “crater” is strongly favoured by Mr. G. P. Merrill, Head Curator of Geology, U.S. National Museum.
The Canyon Diabolo meteorite above referred to was found to contain diamonds! some black, others transparent. So some have said that “the [Pg 122] diamond is a gift from Heaven,” conveyed to earth in meteoric showers. [239] But diamond-bearing meteorites would seem to be rather a freak of nature. It does not follow that all diamonds had their origin in meteoric stones. ”

“ Messer Durante of Brescia, whom I have previously mentioned, engaged the soldier (formerly druggist of Prato) to administer some deadly liquor in my food; [1] the poison was to work slowly, producing its effect at the end of four or five months. They resolved on mixing pounded diamond with my victuals. Now the diamond is not a poison in any true sense of the word, but its incomparable hardness enables it, unlike ordinary stones, to retain very acute angles. When every other stone is pounded, that extreme sharpness of edge is lost; their fragments becoming blunt and rounded. ”